Saturday, February 28, 2009

On Saturday, I asked David if we could go to Lake Arrowhead. I needed to clear my head from the crazy week and Alex had been begging us to see the snow. The day was absolutely gorgeous.

Panorama of Lake Arrowhead Village

We took a boat tour on The Arrowhead Queen.

It was a beautiful trip - very calm and the water was like glass. The nice captain even let Alex pilot the boat for a little bit,

while David and I relaxed and enjoyed the breathtaking views.

We saw a lot of huge lakeside estates.

The captain said they usually remained empty for the winter.

The scenery made us feel like we were in the East Coast.

I wonder what it's like to live in this fairytale home?

A park stood at the end of a peninsula overlooking the lake.

Alex having some fun in the snow.

Alex and I had a snowball fight and we made snow angels.

Here are my handsome snow angels.

A lovely family photo to remember the day.This day brought a very special lesson. It reminded me that no matter what problems I have to face, so long as I have faith in God and the love of my family and friends, I can move any mountain.

"If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you." - Matthew 17:20

Friday, February 27, 2009

In the Information Age, there are so many ways to communicate: face to face, phone, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Post-it-Notes, etc., but equally many ways to miscommunicate. So, I've decided to go to the "expert" Emily Post for a refresher course.

"According to the respondents to a recent survey done by the institute, the most successful relationships are all grounded in a continuous effort to communicate, and they use a unique, personal language that includes both verbal and nonverbal communication."

In addition, there was also a great article in the Miami Herald about Emily Post and her upbringing: The Emily Post who emerges was not always kind in her dealings with people. But she was always proper and more important, always decent. Something I aim to be.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Last weekend we wanted to get out of town to get some fresh mountain air. We had heard about Victoria Garden's in Rancho Cucamonga and though we would check it out. I really wanted to go to the snow, but the outdoor mall had a nice view of Mount Baldy. We were quite surprised, the mall had great stores like Bass Outdoor World (we felt like we were in Texas). I also scored a couple of cute Christmas stockings that were on sale at West Elm.

Alex my lucky boy got two free tokens for a train ride becuase the ticket lady saw that his Daddy was going to ride with him. Apparently "daddies" are too cool to ride on the trains . The lady thought it was so sweet. That's my hubby!As you can see the weather was cloudy for CA.Alex seems to always have a fountain picture whereever we go.The locomotive that takes kids around the mall.I think we got the free tokens because of David's striking good looks and Alex's cuteness. Nothing is more attractive that a man with his child. I know I'm in love.

BASS Outdoor World

In front of the massive outdoor enthusiast store.The front entrance was like a lodge. We think this is where Ralph Lauren gets his inspiration.An craftsman style chandelier hangs above the entrace.Alex shopping for boy toys for his first off-road trip with Uncle Tason?Bass has every outdoor equipment imaginable like boats and even had a huge aquarium filled with gigantic cat fish.At first I refused to go inside because I am not the outdoorsy type, but once I came in I wanted to buy everything and go camping! Yes ladies they now make fashionable outdoor clothes for the mommies and the kids.

David was in a fender bender on the freeway last week. Thank God he wasn't hurt - just a few minor aches and a little shock. He was driving our black Camry, which will be out of commission for about a month. The body shop says it will be $10 grand in damages! It's a good thing that the person who hit our car had insurance.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Today was President's Day, and both Alex and David had the day off. It was either off to the snow or up to LA for some museum time. Well because it was raining (and likely snowing) we decided to head to LA.On holiday Mondays, Target sponsors free admission days to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The last one was on Martin Luther King day back in January, but we ended up going to San Clemente. This time we piled in the car early and braved the wet weather. We arrived 40 minutes before opening, so we walked around the grounds for a bit. The museum has an installation on Wilshire Boulevard of numerous old streetlamps. Walking through them felt like being in an 80s music video.

We walked over to the new Broad Contemporary wing that opened last year

Then we headed back inside the main buildings to get out of the rain and waited on the steps for the galleries to open. We saw the BMW Art Cars, Indonesian textiles exhibit as well as the Vanity Fair Magazine portraits.

While David went to feed the parking meters, Alex and I went to the sculpture garden that had Alexander Calder's fountain mobiles.

They had a free music performance as well, where all the kids in the audience got a drum to play along with the band.

Afterwards, we drove a few blocks to the Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax. We ate at the French Crepe Co. where David and I shared the Tropical Crepe, which was drizzled in melted chocolate and was filled with strawberries, bananas, mango, papaya and grapes. Yum.

We walked around the Farmers Market and The Grove a bit, and had to buy Alex some socks after too much puddle jumping.

Alex fooling around in the children's store.

On the way home we saw a beautiful rainbow. Hopefully it means good luck since we bought a lotto ticket at Farmer's Market.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

For Valentine's, we decided to take Alex ice skating for the first time. He was very excited to go. We went to Anaheim Ice (formerly Disney Ice, which built the facility back when they owned the Mighty Ducks hockey team) as there aren't that many ice skating rinks left in Orange County. Besides, we like the architecture by Frank Gehry. Aside from being a great architect, Gehry is Canadian and thus a hockey fan. When Disney commissioned him to design an ice rink/training facility, he came up with a Quonset hut-inspired building, that former Disney CEO Michael Eisner said in the film Sketches of Frank Gehry resembled part of the female anatomy. Maybe that's why I like the building. Judge for yourself:

via hockeynut10 at Flickr

Enough with the building. We got our skates on and Alex felt very nervous trying to walk on them. We finally got on the ice and Alex was clutching on to us as he was trying to figure out why his feet kept sliding. Well, we were on the ice for a minute and then they announced that everyone had to get off because the Zamboni needed to groom the rink. That allowed Armilyn to grab a snack and gain some energy.

After the 15 minute break (where my feet were already starting to hurt), we got back on the ice. It had been 10 years since Armilyn and I skated, so we weren't that stable either. We all stuck to hugging the wall, with one of us taking turns holding Alex's left hand while he held the wall with his right. He loved the experience, even falling down, because the ground-up ice looked like snow.

We skated for a little over an hour until the session ended. By that time, I could barely hold myself up in the skates.Alex and me taking a break halfway around the rink.

Panorama of the other rink where a girls figure skating competition was going on.Earlier that morning, Alex helped make Valentine pancakes for breakfast

Back on Thursday, Alex decorated our Valentine Twig Tree with heart ornaments.post by David

I just found out that TED.com recently moved offices to Long Beach. For those of you who do not know TED, this is the organization responsible for providing a forum for Al Gore's presenation on "An Inconvenient Truth". TED recently had their conference Feb 7 last week. Their lastest video release is Elizabeth Gilbert (Authour of "Eat, Pray, Love" - I have yet to read it) talking about geniuses. It's about the creative spark and the motivation to make something out of nothing. I hope that after seeing the video you will be inspired to find the genius within yourself.